The present invention generally relates to advertising and selling of real estate and, more specifically, to online advertising and selling of real estate by enabling sellers to create individualized web sites for individual properties for sale.
The proliferation of personal computers having access to the Internet has significantly altered the way sellers and buyers can find each other to effect a mutually beneficial transaction. The buyer has the benefit of numerous search engines that can find web sites based upon selected words or phrases. The seller has the benefit of using one or more web sites with numerous pages and links to describe products, receive buyer information and selections, and effect the purchase.
One particular area of commerce that gains significantly from the technical innovations of the Internet is the real estate market. Buyers employ the Internet to search for available properties in particular neighborhoods, having certain features they desire, being offered within selected ranges of price, and so forth. Sellers, through their brokers, can offer their properties at a web site which can be used to present relevant data such as price, number of rooms, size, age, construction and to provide photographs of the properties. Such web sites are particularly useful when the product data remains relatively stable over time because changing the content of each page of a web site on a frequent basis such as every week or even every day, can be relatively inconvenient and costly.
Unfortunately, real estate offerings inherently undergo a rapid rate of change. Properties are sold or enter escrow and are taken off the market. New properties regularly become available. Prices of available properties change often to attract more potential buyers. Terms change such as whether a seller may be willing to carry a second mortgage and at what interest rate or the amount of earnest money required to hold a property during the escrow period. In any event, it is evident that the way real estate property is advertised and sold is not amenable to an Internet system in which relatively fixed web site presentations are inconvenient and costly to change or create on a frequent basis.
Various prior art patents provide real estate-related system and methods that are computer and/or Internet oriented. Of particular interest in this regard are the following references and examples:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,216, Aug. 11, 1998, for Method And System For Data Acquisition In A Multimedia Real Estate Data Base, is a system for data acquisition in a multimedia real estate database. The database contains textual information for each house for sale, an exterior image for each house, an interior image for each house, and a parameter indicating a portion of the exterior image corresponding to the interior image. All of the foregoing is in a common database format.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,754,850, May 19, 1998, for Real-Estate Method And Apparatus For Searching For Homes In A Search Pool For Exact And Close Matches According To Primary And Non-Primary Selection Criteria, is a real estate method for searching for homes in a search pool according to selection criteria. Selection features are selected and each item in the database is examined to determine if an item has a given search feature. If an item is an exact match to a given search feature, then that item is assigned full points. If an item closely matches the search feature, then the item is assigned partial points. Items with the highest total points are displayed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,584,025, Dec. 10, 1996, Apparatus And Method For Interactive Communication For Tracking And Viewing Data, is a system for acquiring and displaying information relating to a specific industry such as real estate. The information relates to a particular property, community, financing, demographics, et cetera and can be accessed by real estate agents and end users. When, where, and how often an advertisement and/or property is viewed is instantly recorded by the system. Viewership and response patterns can be retrieved by advertisers.
However, none of these prior art disclosures provides a system or method that is real estate oriented and which addresses the aforementioned problem of rapidly changing data including the need to frequently delete sold properties and add newly available properties.
In one aspect of the present invention, a method of advertising products and services through at least one web site on the Internet, such products and services having frequently changing parameters rendering it desirable for a seller to also frequently modify the web site to keep the advertising current; comprises a) providing a home web site; b) determining at the home web site whether a user is an existing customer or a new customer and linking to either of at least two alternative second web sites depending upon the determination; c) if the user is an existing customer, presenting user log-in data entry at the corresponding second web site; d) verifying that the log-in data is valid; e) offering the verified user a selection from a plurality of service functions, at least one of the functions being the creation of a new page for advertising an added product or service; f) linking the user who has selected the creation service function to a site creation page and permitting the user to select a new site layout and to enter data related to the added product or service; g) providing payment data entry to the user and verifying the payment data; and h) linking the user to a final page for finalizing the new site creation, updating appropriate database entries, and obtaining a file folder corresponding to a domain name for the new site.
In another aspect of the present invention, a system for advertising real estate on the Internet and permitting a user to add new linked web sites corresponding to additional real estate properties offered by the user comprises a plurality of computers each having an Internet browser and being connected for communication through an ISP to the Internet; at least one web server having a corresponding data base and being connected to the Internet, with the web server and corresponding data base having account and web site data for a plurality of users, each such user being assigned at least one web site page pertaining to at least one real estate property; and the server having a device for receiving data corresponding to a new real estate property listing, generating a corresponding new web site page, and creating a file having a corresponding domain name.
These and other features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with reference to the following drawings, description and claims.